When I was six months pregnant, Hazel Simmons rammed her car into me and drove me into a wall. I lost the baby on the spot, and I nearly died with it.

Vincent Henson went half out of his mind. He tore Hazel's company apart and put her behind bars with his own hands.

Vincent had always been a workaholic and a nonbeliever, but for the five years after that he began keeping a vegetarian fast and reciting scripture, and no matter how busy he was, every single month he took me up the mountain to stay a few days at the chapel.

He even endowed a charity elementary school at the foot of that mountain.

All of it, he said, was to pray for the child of ours who never got to be born.

Until this trip, when I felt suddenly sick while I was praying and had to fight down the nausea. The old monk took my pulse and congratulated me. I was pregnant.

My heart was full. I went to find Vincent, who was working in the back courtyard.

And the moment I stepped through the gate, I heard it. A low, tangled sound.

"Vincent, does she ever give you a time like this? I heard you keep her wrapped up like some porcelain doll."

"What do you think happens if I tell her? That every time you come here to pray with her, it's really so you can come do this with me. Think she'd fall apart?"

"Hazel, don't you dare. If you say one word to her, I promise you won't like what comes next."

Then the sounds from the room grew rougher.

I stood frozen at the doorway. After a long time, I opened the app and pulled up the screen to book an abortion.

...

I looked at the words confirming the appointment on my phone, and a dull ache spread through my chest.

Just then the door creaked open.

Vincent came out, still doing up his shirt.

The second he saw me, panic flickered across his face.

"Faith Sullivan..."

He said my name and started toward me to hold me, his buttons still half undone.

The smell of what he'd just done was all over him. I stepped back on instinct and gagged.

"Vincent, you're filthy..."

His expression froze on his face.

Hazel walked out of the room behind him and gave a cold little laugh. "So now you think he's filthy? But back when you married him, he and I were already—"

"Hazel, shut up!"

Vincent cut her off just in time, and looked at me carefully.

That look on his face was exactly like the one he'd worn back when Hazel's car left me unable to move, lying in that bed after I lost the baby.

He'd looked at me the same way then, holding my hand, telling me he would never let me be hurt again.

"How many times has it been?" I heard my own voice shaking.

"Just this once..."

His eyes slid away, and I knew he was lying.

"As many times as you two have come up this mountain, that's how long we've been together."

Hazel looked at me, her whole face full of contempt.

Vincent turned on her, furious. "Hazel, no one thinks you're mute just because you keep quiet! Get out, now!"

Hazel didn't say anything. She just kept watching me, like she was enjoying it.

After the car hit me, I'd lain in bed for nearly two months, and Vincent had handled everything.

Only now did I understand. Hazel had never gone to prison after she ran me down.

She'd been in contact with Vincent this whole time.

Even while I was here praying for the child Vincent and I had lost, she'd been hiding in this chapel's back courtyard, doing what they did, on holy ground.

Seeing there was no hiding it, Vincent gripped my shoulders.

"Faith, listen to me. It's true I didn't let Hazel go to prison, but Faith, her company really did go bankrupt. That was years of her life's work."

"You lost the baby, but she lost everything too. Isn't that enough? We'll have more children later, but right now Hazel has nothing. The baby was never even born, it was only an embryo. It's been so long. Can't you get past it yet?"

Vincent's words drove into my chest like needles, one after another.

I couldn't take any more. I turned to leave on instinct, but Vincent seized my arm.

"You're not well. Be good and come home with me."

In the end, Vincent forced me into the car anyway.

And Hazel came home with us.

Vincent said Hazel had done a terrible thing once, had hurt me so badly, so from now on she would slave for me and atone for it.

I had no strength left to argue.

We got out and went inside, and the moment we stepped through the door Hazel folded her arms and looked the place over.

"This decor is exactly my taste."

"And that shoe cabinet, isn't that the one I picked out back then?"

Vincent's expression didn't change. He only shot her a warning look.

I clenched the hands hanging at my sides and turned to look at him.

When this house was being renovated, Vincent had said he didn't want me to wear myself out, so he'd handled all of it himself, the renovation and the design.

My friends all envied me for finding such a thoughtful match.

Only now did I understand. He'd built a house his ex-girlfriend loved.

Seeing my face go ashen, Vincent snapped at Hazel.

"Don't forget you're here to atone."

Hazel let out a cold snort and said nothing more.

Vincent took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

Ever since the car hit me, my body had never been quite right, and just like before he pressed a hand to my forehead, and once he was sure I had no fever, he crouched down beside me to explain.

"Don't listen to her nonsense. You hate her, don't you? From now on let her slave for you. Order her around, torment her however you want, all right?"

I closed my eyes, and something in me died. Vincent knew perfectly well how gentle I was, that I never made trouble for anyone.

He could put Hazel in front of me and I still wouldn't order her around or torment her. I would only avoid her, because that was the face that turned up in my nightmares.

After Vincent left, I shut myself in the bedroom and called my guardian, Julian, who was overseas.

I knew Vincent was obsessive. Getting him to let me go would be almost impossible.

The only person I could turn to was Julian, my guardian, though we shared no blood.

After I hung up, I came out of the bedroom.

Vincent really did seem set on making Hazel atone. She was kneeling on the floor now, wiping it down inch by inch, the picture of pitiful suffering.

But if a little housework could wash away what she'd done, what would we need the police for?

Julian said he'd find time soon to come to me. I thought of the abortion I'd scheduled for three days out, and decided to hold still and wait.

Those three days were uneventful. Vincent worked Hazel hard every day, made her scrub every corner of the house, handed her the filthiest and most exhausting jobs.

Then, the night before the procedure, I jolted awake from a nightmare and found Vincent wasn't beside me.

I got out of bed and opened the door. The house was silent, and only Hazel's maid's room had light seeping out from under it.

Somehow I felt no surprise at all. Barefoot, I walked over, pressed myself against the door, and listened to what was happening inside.

Hazel was kneeling on the floor in some seductive pose, her voice thick with allure.

"Vincent, doesn't it thrill you? Your wife, right there in the master bedroom, not far away at all?"

"And here I am, playing the little maid and the master with you."

My stomach heaved in that instant, and the moment my hand flew up to cover my mouth, my body stumbled and shoved the unlocked door wide open.

When he saw it was me, Vincent's expression shifted, and he pushed Hazel behind him.

"It's this late. Why aren't you sleeping? What are you wandering around for?"

I pressed a hand to my chest and dragged out a mocking smile.

"Watching you and your little maid play your games, of course."

"Vincent, is this why you brought her home?"

"Is doing this with her how you have her atone?"

His face darkened. He gestured at his own clothes. "We didn't do anything. Do you have to be so snide about it?"

"Nothing? If I hadn't opened this door, you were about to do everything, weren't you?"

"Enough, Faith! It's late. You should go back to bed!"

He grabbed my wrist and tried to drag me back to the bedroom.

His grip was strong, and it hurt where he pulled. I wrenched my hand free, my voice raw.

"Vincent, let's get a divorce."

He froze for a few seconds, as if he hadn't expected me to say the word.

"Out of the question. I promised your grandfather I'd take care of you for the rest of your life. Can't you stop being so difficult?"

"Difficult?"

I choked the word back out at him.

How could any of this be me being difficult?

Vincent and I were a business marriage.

At first I hadn't wanted it. But Grandfather was hanging by a thread, and his last wish before he died was to see me settled with someone good.

Vincent swore to Grandfather that he would take care of me.

So I married him.

It was only after the wedding that I learned Vincent had an ex-girlfriend he could never quite cut loose, Hazel Simmons.

He would hold my hand and promise me, over and over, that the two of them had broken up long ago, that it was only Hazel who kept clinging to him. He said he would handle it, that he would never put me in a difficult spot.

I believed him.

After all, Vincent was the man Grandfather had chosen for me.

I trusted Grandfather's judgment.

But I never imagined that when I was six months pregnant, Hazel, furious that she couldn't win Vincent back, drove her car straight into me.

"Divorce, Vincent. Since you think I'm being difficult, let's divorce."

There was more resolve in my voice now.

He knit his brows, irritated, still trying to coax me around. But Hazel, beside him, gave a cold laugh.

"Divorce? You still don't know? Your marriage certificate is fake."

The air went silent. I looked at Vincent in disbelief.

He closed his eyes. This time he didn't lash out. He told me calmly instead.

"Things have gotten to this point. You'd have found out sooner or later. Our marriage certificate really is fake."

"Back then, with the business marriage, my parents forced me to accept you. But by then I'd already gotten a marriage certificate with Hazel."

"Later my parents threatened me. If I didn't stay with you, they'd go after Hazel. I had no choice but to accept you. The marriage certificate between you and me is fake too."

"Faith, all these years, I can tell you plainly, I've come to feel something for you. I kept looking for a chance to tell you the truth, but there was never time..."